1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to audio equipment, and more particularly, to a device for improving the sound quality thereof.
2. Background of the Invention
A typical audio equipment system includes numerous switches for selecting system functions, and also numerous connectors between components of the system. These switches and connectors rely on metal-to-metal contact to conduct operational currents of the system.
Within seconds, oxide layers which act as insulators form on any metal surfaces exposed to air. This oxide layer inevitably reduces the sound quality of the overall system by reducing or eliminating the metal-to-metal contact is absent, a nonlinear "tunnel diode" is formed.
A technique known as "fritting," involving the breakdown of an insulating film structure by providing a large current through the contacts on which the film structure exists, is disclosed in "Electrical Contacts--1963," published August 1964, University of Maine. While that paper discusses laboratory tests of a fritting technique, such a technique has not been applied to audio systems with the goal of providing high sound quality thereof. Furthermore, the fritting technique discussed in that and other references was in reference to high current flows in industrial power switching, not in low-level signal switching such as occurs in audio circuits.